The Rumor that just won’t Die – Death of the Mac Mini

According to Apple Insider Apple has told some of its channel partners not to expect any more shipments of its current Mac mini configurations. So, of course, that means that the Mac Mini is dead.

Right?

Not really, no.

However, the rumored death of the Mac Mini is one of those rumors that is going to continue to be talked up until it eventually happens at some point in the future. Having said that, I won’t be surprised if the Mac Mini line evolves and is renamed the Mac Nano. That’s the other rumor that just won’t die, and it makes sense.

It would create “synergy” (sweet mother of Pete, I hate that word) between the Mac and iPod lines, and Apple has already shown a precedent of this when they renamed the iPod Mini as the Nano during its second generation.

I do sincerely hope we see a redesigned mini in the very near future. I’m trying to decide what to do to replace my first generation Mini right now, and a new mini or mac nano would be a much less expensive purchase than an iMac. It makes sense for us to see something like this around the release of Leopard – so we could see something of this nature by the end of the month.

Comments

I have a first gen mac mini too. If it weren’t for the mini introduction back in 2005 with a price point of $500 I would have never bought an mac here in Egypt.

Throwing away that critical market entry point is not something that Apple would do given their constantly rising shares in the computer market. The mini has been one of their top sellers since its introduction. Everyone who needs a taste of the apple wouldn’t mind to shed $500 or $600 for it besides getting the ever beautiful OS X the mini is truly an awesome machine that’s made for web and entertainment purposes besides getting things done too.

Now that new buyers and switchers are officially mac users they are ready to buy a more expensive machine like the imac or may be a macbook. Why not? If I can get this great user experience at home, why don’t I take it with me everywhere?

And this means that the market share for other more expensive macs must be on a rise thanks to the mini too.

But, is the current mini that perfect? Well, the answer is no because of some minor issues mentioned below here:

1. The lack of a dedicated TV out which is available for all other macs. And since this is the kind of mac you will probably allow sitting next to your TV in your living room, it’s a shame apple didn’t pay attention to this major point. Of course you can buy the TV out adapter but having to reach for the back of the mini to disconnect your monitor and hook up the tv out adapter is a real pain especially when you have other stuff stacked above your mini like a hub or a hard drive. So the end result for me is that I rarely connect it to my 34” TV and I watch my movies and TV shows on a 17” crt. What a shame!

2. The display card is really week in the mini and a lot of buyers would seriously consider buying one if Apple upgraded its display card to a decent Nvidia or ATI other than the crippled built-in intel (shared memory) solution that doesn’t even support final cut pro. This will definitely be a deal maker for a lot of potential buyers out there who would want a better display card to handle either games, DVDs, or casual video editing on final cut pro which I personally prefer over the crippled iMovie in all its flavors. And I am happily using final cut on my first gen power pc mini so it’s a shame that the new intel based minis are incapable of doing this.

That’s it. So if Apple introduced a mac nano with the above couple of issues fixed while maintaining the current awesome form factor and super quietness. This will be a wonder of a mac machine and it will attract buyers like flowers attract bees in spring time (I guess flowers always attract bees all year round!)

Thanks Michael for your always great work and for giving me the space to express my thoughts on Apple products.